Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Google said it does not use ARIA for SEO or ranking purposes. Google said AI is not going away, so don’t be left behind. Google Discover seems to be getting new icons. Google Search has these top recipe guides. Google is testing other people search box. Plus, I have my video scheduled to be posted today. And again, I am offline today, this was pre-written and scheduled.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• 
  Does Google Search Use ARIA? Likely Not.
  
  
  Google Search likely does not use ARIA Accessible Rich Internet Applications, for ranking or even indexing purposes, according to both John Mueller and Martin Splitt at Google.
• 
  Google: AI Is Not Going Away, So Don’t Be Left Behind
  
  
  Google’s John Mueller posted his thoughts on AI, which were two fold. (1) AI is not going away, so he doesn’t recommend you take a stance against AI and (2) he isn’t a fan of all the hype around AI, because it is making many feel insecure about their future.
• 
  Video: Google Ranking Movement, Sitelinks Search Box Going Away, Gen-AI In Bing & Google, Ad News & More
  
  
  This week, we had more Google search ranking volatility to report on – surprise, surprise. Google is deprecating its Sitelinks Search Box next month. Google may have penalized Fortune Recommends over site reputation abuse. Google is showing generative AI throughout the search results…
• 
  Google Discover Design Update & New Icons
  
  
  Google Discover is rolling out some small design updates to its interfaces. It has these new colored icons that communicate the action and Google is also showing other articles shown in a carousel.
• 
  Google Search Top Recipe Guides List
  
  
  Google is showing a section named “top recipe guides” that can be expanded or collapsed in Google Search. It shows a “Lists of options from the web” in this expanded section.
• 
  Google Other People Search Box
  
  
  Google is testing another variation of the people also ask box, this one is titled “other people search.” I am not sure if there is any functional or technical difference between this box and the other variations outside of the title.
• 
  NYC Google Salad Bar Top View
  
  
  Here is a top down view of a salad bar at the Google offices in New York City. You can see the Google chef making up a custom salad for a Googler.
• 
  Programming Note: Offline For Simchat Torah On Thursday & Friday
  
  
  This is a programming note that Thursday and Friday are Simchat Torah and I will be offline the next two days. I will be offline on Thursday and Friday, October 24th and October 25th.

Other Great Search Threads:

Search Engine Land Stories:

Other Great Search Stories:

Analytics

Industry & Business

Links & Content Marketing

Local & Maps

Mobile & Voice

SEO

PPC

Feedback:

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Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Simchat Torah.

Google is testing adding a new rich result type to the search results snippet named “Shop nearby.” The shop nearby link will open the Google Business Profile of the business’s website.

We have seen similar snippets before with city names in the snippets and also shop nearby features but this is a variation of that, I believe.

This new one was posted by SERP Alerts (Brodie Clark) on X and SERP notes, here is a screenshot:

Here is the video of this in action:

This local SEO test seems to work quite well. A ‘shop nearby’ rich result is appearing for some eComm stores, triggering the GBP hover panel for the closest store to show. The fast loading panel on mobile works well. Details: https://t.co/WupmipgeQg cc @DarrenShaw_ @mblumenthal pic.twitter.com/Hid1O0SU3U

— SERP Alert (@SERPalerts) October 21, 2024

Forum discussion at X.

Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Simchat Torah.

Google may have hit Fortune Recommends with a search penalty, downgrading its Google search rankings. This may be related to the site reputation abuse policy, like it may have done previously to Forbes Advisor a few weeks ago and some other large publications.

Fortune Recommends is hosted on a subfolder at fortune.com/recommends and is the product reviews arm of Fortune Media. Fortune says it publishes “unbiased research and information on the products and services readers use every day to make their lives better.”

It seems the site got hit around October 11th, as per Glenn Gabe who documented the hit in a post on X. Glenn wrote, “now Fortune Recommends is dropping heavily as of October 11th. And it’s a BIG drop in search visibility. I’m seeing close to 400K queries drop in position with many completely lost.”

Here are two charts, one from Sistrix and the other from Semrush, I believe:

Glenn asked, “is it a manual action for Site reputation abuse, or is it algorithmic like it seems for Forbes’ affiliate content? Only Google knows. Muahahaha.” Very true.

As we previously covered, the site reputation abuse policy is still not algorithmic, this does seem to be a manual action, that Google actually started to enforce back in May. But when I spoke to Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, he said the site reputation abuse policy will be manually enforced for a long time.

Google also updated its spam guidelines a few weeks ago and added more detail about site reputation abuse.

Here is Glenn’s post:

I’ve already covered how Forbes Advisor and APNews Buyline both dropped heavily, but now Fortune Recommends is dropping heavily as of October 11th. And it’s a BIG drop in search visibility. I’m seeing close to 400K queries drop in position with many completely lost. So, is it a… pic.twitter.com/ACBR2S1pVX

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) October 22, 2024

Maybe it was hit because of this post on X?

For example: https://t.co/xSUJukW8xghttps://t.co/0nxcZH8pqR

— Goog Enough (@Goog_Enough) October 17, 2024

I mean, it seems algorithmic but who knows…

Forum discussion at X.